The wetting property
of nanomaterials is of great importance to
both fundamental understanding and potential applications. However,
the study on the intrinsic wetting property of nanomaterials is interfered
by organic capping agents, which are often used to lower the surface
energy of nanomaterials and avoid their irreversible agglomeration.
In this work, the wetting property of the nanostructured polyaniline
that requires no organic capping agents is investigated. Compared
to hydrophilic granular particulates, polyaniline nanofibers are amphiphilic
and have an excellent capability of creating Pickering emulsions at
a wide range of pH. It is suggested that polyaniline nanofibers can
be easily wetted by water and oil. Furthermore, the amphiphilic polyaniline
nanofibers as building blocks can be used to construct filtration
membranes with a small pore size. The wetting layer of the continuous
phase of emulsions in the porous nanochannels efficiently prevents
the permeation of the dispersed phase, realizing high-efficiency on-demand
emulsion separation
